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It's been a heck of a year. And as 2017 draws to a close, a bunch of web giants are on hand to remind us of what we got up to on their services. Twitter had us raging, Facebook saw us praying for victims of tragedies, and now Google (the biggest of the three) is sharing its year in search. The top spot in the US and worldwide was reserved for Hurricane Irma. The same went for Google news trends in the US, which were dominated by natural disasters, including Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Jose, and Hurricane Maria, with the looming threat of North Korea and the tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas making the top ten as well.

Bitcoin is sitting at $16,674 at the time of writing, after rocketing from $1,000 to more than $19,000 in the course of this year. Those types of eye-catching numbers (and the resulting media hype) are bound to draw the interest of casual folk. But, unless you've got money to burn (like Bitcoin billionaires, and Zuck's Harvard-era nemeses, the Winklevoss twins), most analysts will tell you the same thing: steer clear of the hyper-volatile currency. (Even those dabbling in it have lost tons of cash to cyberattacks on Bitcoin wallets).

Bitcoin is one step closer to becoming a part of the mainstream financial world. Cboe is launching the first US bitcoin futures exchange at 6PM Eastern, giving speculators a chance to bet on the value of the cryptocurrency through a listed (XBT), regulated entity. You don't use a digital wallet or otherwise require bitcoins -- instead, you trade and settle futures contracts using cash, with a $10 minimum price interval and a $1 transaction fee from January onward. There aren't any price limits, and you can short your futures (that is, immediately sell them in hopes of turning a quick profit) if your broker allows it.

Next time you sell old furniture, you can use it as a chance to add more bitcoins to your stockpile. Craigslist now gives you a way to specify in your listing whether you accept virtual currency. Blockexplorer News has noticed a new checkbox option that says "cryptocurrency ok" when you create a new ad, which does make sense for Craigslist transactions. Since the website doesn't vet buyers or sellers, paying with virtual coins means you won't have to worry about getting fake bills and bounced checks, and you won't have to give a total stranger your bank details for payment.

A cryptocurrency marketplace called NiceHash has suffered a security breach that left its bitcoin wallet tens of millions of dollars lighter. Slovenia-based NiceHash connects miners, or people selling their hashing/computer power, with people willing to pay for that power. Andrej P. Škraba, the marketplace's head of marketing, told Reuters that the company was targeted by "a highly professional attack" that involved "sophisticated social engineering." He also revealed that the infiltrators got away with 4,700 bitcoins -- or around $64 million.

Have you been stockpiling bitcoin to go on a Steam shopping spree? You'll need to change your plans. Valve has stopped accepting bitcoin due to a combination of high transaction costs (up from 20 cents in the beginning to $20) and "volatility" in the cryptocurrency's value. While the virtual cash has never been especially stable, its worth has taken a roller coaster ride over the past few months. Its value has been skyrocketing lately (one bitcoin is worth $13,300 US as of this writing), but it has also crashed hard -- Valve cited a 25 percent drop "over a period of days" as an example. That fluctuation creates a huge problem if you make a purchase and it doesn't complete before the usual bitcoin price guarantee elapses, as you may have to pay an outstanding balance and a second transaction fee.

This was not what I expected to be doing with my October. But there I was, on a flight to Hong Kong, hoping I would be able to retrieve $200,000 worth of bitcoin from a broken laptop.

Four years ago, I was living in Hong Kong when a fellow journalist named Mike* and I decided to invest in bitcoin. I bought four while Mike went in for 40; I spent about $2,000 while he put in $15,000. At the time, it seemed super speculative, but over the years, bitcoin surged and Mike seemed downright prescient. I had since relocated to Los Angeles and had been texting Mike about the 2,000 percent rise in our investment.

*Name changed for anonymity.

Strangely, I wasn't getting much of a response from him. He had 10 times as many bitcoins as I did -- shouldn't he at least have been excited? Finally, when the price of one bitcoin broke $4,000 this summer, I sent him this message: "You do still have those bitcoins right?" That's when he broke it to me: "Maybe not ..."

Here's what happened: At some point in 2013, Mike had rightfully become concerned about security. He initially kept his coins in an exchange called LocalBitcoins. Exchanges are commonly used to buy and sell cryptocurrency, but you shouldn't keep your coins there. The most infamous bitcoin scandal to date was when Mt. Gox, an exchange based in Japan, lost 850,000 of its users' bitcoins.

Exchanges can also suddenly close, as some did in China this year when the Chinese government suddenly made them illegal. Any serious cryptocurrency investor will tell you that your coins are best kept in "cold storage" (an offline hardware wallet). That's what I'd done with mine, but Mike hadn't gone that far three years ago when he started thinking about security. Instead, he set up a software wallet. It was a good step, but he would soon learn, it was not foolproof.

The UK government wants to increase regulation around Bitcoin by expanding financial regulations imposed by the European Union. It follows growing concerns that the cryptocurrency is being used to facilitate crime, including drug dealers, brothels and gangs. Stephen Barclay, economic secretary for HM Treasury, revealed in a notice that British legislators were negotiating amendments to the EU-wide 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. It would bring Bitcoin exchange and wallet providers under the purview of relevant national authorities, forcing them to carry out due diligence on customers and report suspicious activity. Traders would also be required to disclose their identities, according to The Guardian.

"We are working to address concerns about the use of cryptocurrencies, by negotiating to bring virtual currency exchange platforms and some wallet providers within Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing regulation," a Treasury spokesperson told Engadget.

All of this would be a huge shake-up in the cryptocurrency community. At the moment, it's possible to remain anonymous while dealing in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and similar digital money. That freedom is part of the appeal, of course, alongside their distributed ledgers and decentralised structures. The flip-side is that Bitcoin now has a reputation for fuelling all sorts of criminal activity. As Business Insider reports, the Metropolitan Police recently held a crime briefing to discus the problem. It said Bitcoin ATMs are increasingly being used to deposit cash without alerting its officers.

"If you move large quantities of cash around it leaves you vulnerable to other criminals," detective chief superintendent Michael Gallagher, head of the Met's Serious and Organised Crime Command added. "It's in their own interest, in terms of protection, to use this."

The UK expects its negotiations with the EU to end in the next few months. If they're successful, the British government will need to create or amend domestic legislation to enforce the new rules. In the meantime, Bitcoin users are free to operate as normal. The currency's value currently sits at more than $11,200, a record high. It is, therefore, no surprise to see more regulators looking twice at Bitcoin's impact on the international economy.

John Mann, a member of the Treasury select committee, told the Telegraph that his cross-party group was likely to hold an enquiry next year. "It would be timely to have a proper look at what this means," he said. "It may be that we want to speed up our use of these kinds of things in this country, but that makes it all the more important that we don't have a regulatory lag."

Coinbase will be forced to share the financial information of 14,355 users with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), following a California federal court ruling. The move follows a year-long battle between the cryptocurrency company and the IRS, which believes a high number of customers are failing to report holdings on their taxes. Coinbase has some six million users, but fewer than 1,000 have officially declared cryptocurrency activity.

Bitcoin continues to grow, hitting a $11,000 price per coin valuation less than a day after it topped $10,000. The cryptocurrency has been normalizing with investors, getting its own federally-regulated exchange this past July. Now, Nasdaq is planning to launch contracts for bitcoin futures in the first half of 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal, which will enable investors to predict and put money on the future price of the currency.

Square Cash moved beyond sending money in February 2016 when it started letting users store their funds in account reserves, digital wallet-style. Starting today, you can use the service's mobile app to stash another type of currency: bitcoin. But only select users are seeing the feature.

With Bitcoin trading at all time high, investors are working out whether it's best to sit on their stockpile or make the most of it while they can. For those wishing to utilise their investment, opportunities can be limited, with only a small number of big companies currently supporting cryptocurrency transactions. London Block Exchange (LBX) wants to change that. It's launching a new Visa debit card that will let users spend their Bitcoin (and other digital currencies) anywhere across the UK.

A Secret Service agent already convicted to 71 months in prison for swiping Silk Road Bitcoins will get another two years for a separate Bitcoin theft, Reuters reports. Shaun Bridges pleaded guilty to stealing 1,606 Bitcoins -- worth around $360,000 at the time and now valued at over $11 million -- from a Bitcoin wallet controlled by the Secret Service. The theft was discovered when the agency tried to return some of the coins after they were seized from the European BitStamp exchange.

There's a new ransomware making the rounds today with confirmed targets in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Germany. Kaspersky Labs says that nearly 200 victims have been hit with the ransomware that's been dubbed Bad Rabbit.

Want your bitcoin purchases in a hurry? That's doable now that Coinbase has opened up instant purchases for cryptocurrency. Whether you're a fan of ethereum, litecoin or plain old bitcoin, you're covered here. Previously you'd have to wait a few days between the initial purchase and actually being able to spend it. Coinbase says that you can buy up to $25,000 and gain access to it immediately. The functionality is available to "many" customers stateside right now and it will roll out to more people soon. Seeing that this deals with ethereum, if you've been waiting to pick up Ghostface's cyrptocurrency now you can do that with a quickness.

Shake Shack's next burger joint at Astor Place in NYC doesn't want your money -- at least not the physical variety. In an effort to reduce the "friction time" between paying for your meal and eating it, the company plans to replace human cashiers for automated kiosks which won't accept actual bills and coins, only cards. This move is part of a global trend away from cash-based economies and towards Star Wars-style credits. But could such a monetary revolution actually benefit all Americans? Don't bet on it.

Sirin Labs, the company behind the $14,000 Solarin smartphone, is now developing an open-source model that runs on a fee-less blockchain. The Finney -- named in honor of bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney -- will be the only smartphone in the world that's fully secure and safe enough to hold cryptographic coins. Or so says the company, which is launching a crowdsale event this October (date to be confirmed) to support the phone's development.

China's crackdown on bitcoin could extend well past big commercial exchanges. Wall Street Journalsources claim that the country is leaning toward a "comprehensive" ban on bitcoin trading channels, such as over-the-counter platforms that help buyers and sellers find each other. It's not certain that this would forbid peer-to-peer trades (such as through messaging apps), but it would likely entail blocking access to foreign exchanges. You couldn't just turn to an American exchange like Coinbase if China-native outlets aren't available.

China has never been a fan of digital currencies like bitcoin, and now the country appears bent on a major crackdown. In the wake of China's recent ban on initial coin offerings (where you raise funds for a new cryptocurrency), Wall Street Journal sources understand that Chinese officials are ordering the shutdown of domestic bitcoin exchanges. The timeline isn't clear -- one says the closure decision had already been made, while another heard the process would take "several months." If the scoop is accurate, however, the motivations are clear.

Rather than give you another punch card or plastic loyalty card for your wallet, Burger King has a different idea for rewarding its customers: cryptocurrency. In Russia, The BK Lounge has started issuing Whoppercoins when people buy food. Save enough and you can redeem them for nuggets, burgers and King Bouqets Buckets in the country. A billion Whoppercoin have been issued thus far via the Waves platform, and more will follow if demand does.

Fidelity Investments announced in May that it would soon let its clients view their bitcoin and other cryptocurrency balances on its website, provided it was stored on Coinbase. Embracing unregulated cryptocoins was seen as a bold move by the brokerage company, and certainly uncommon among financial institutions. Today, Fidelity made good on its promise: Once users authorize the site to access their data from Coinbase, they can check their bitcoin savings.

Earlier this week, disgruntled members of the bitcoin community successfully split a new cryptocurrency off from the main branch. Bitcoin Cash, as it's called, attempts to speed up transactions, a key problem with bitcoin's aging structure. But the new alternative currency will only survive if users invest in it. Some cryptocurrency exchanges said they wouldn't back it due to its instability, but one of those holdouts, Coinbase, just announced that it's come around and will support Bitcoin Cash.

This morning, bitcoin split into two currencies -- the original and Bitcoin Cash. The hard forking, as it's known, resulted from heated debate over the cryptocurrency's future, since the aging tech behind blockchain has prevented easy scaling. While a new code upgrade called SegWit2x was introduced last week as a compromise, dissenters still decided to start backing Bitcoin Cash and fork off in their own direction. The community anxiously waited for financial fallout after the schism, but aside from a temporary 7 percent drop in bitcoin value this morning, the split seems to have avoided disaster. Whether Bitcoin Cash sticks around is another question.

A digital gold rush always has one obvious winner: the people who make the tools necessary to mine in the first place. AMD, for instance, has found itself the beneficiary of an increase in demand for its graphics cards, although it doesn't believe that it's a sustainable, long-term business. The company revealed as much during its earnings, with profits in the graphics card business increasing by 51 percent year on year.